Exploring the relationships between perceived neighborhood boundaries and street network orientation

The neighborhood is a core unit of analysis in urban research, planning, and policy-making. However, perceptual and historical processes oftentimes result in neighborhoods that are not tied to sub-urban jurisdictions. For instance, historic neighborhoods might lack official spatial definitions, hampering neighborhood-based tasks in local offices. In this case, urban practitioners can benefit from readily available spatial proxies, such as the local street network. In this study, we conducted an exploratory analysis that combines neighborhood mapping and street network modeling. By retrieving participants' sketched boundaries and quantifying spatial orientations of sketched polygons and local network patterns, we were able to measure and compare the relationships between the urban fabric and the perceived extents of two historic neighborhoods in Lisbon, Portugal. The results provided insights for enhancing existing definitions of non-official neighborhoods, outlining new urban districts as well as for discussions about the role of the urban form in shaping people's perceptions.